Virgin boss Richard Branson tells Ferrari: You're just sad!

London, Feb. 28 (ANI): Blasting Ferrari's statement that F1 would have been better off if Toyota and BMW had not quit, Virgin racing boss Richard Branson has told the Italian F1 giants: ou're just sad!

"I think that it's a bit sad to see Ferrari carrying on with those kinds of words. F1 needs new teams. Ferrari won the battle of making sure the new teams were shackled," News Of The World quoted Branson, 59, as saying.

"Eight or nine months ago the new teams were going to be given a few breaks here and there in order to give them a bit of a leg up."

"As it is they have been told that they have to come into the race with exactly the same rules as the teams that have been going for 20, 30 or 40 years," he added.

"Ferrari should be welcoming new teams because they make the sport much more exciting. We will make them look better for a year or two until we catch them up."

Ferrari attacked ex-motor racing chief Max Mosley this week for waging a 'holy war' to get new teams into the sport.

But Branson hit out at Ferrari for resisting plans to slash budgets.

"I think it was a pity that they were resistant and I think it is foolish actually. I think the Virgin team will prove that you can have a really good racing team, running very fast, within a very tight budget. Give it a year or two," he said.

"You cannot just build a new team from scratch and start beating Ferrari who have spent 400 million pounds on a car whereas Virgin has spent less than 40 million pounds. Once the budgets for everyone comes down to the 40 million pounds then we will see a much more equal playing field," he added. (ANI)